Drug screening methods for testing people.

There are many methods to screen for illegal drugs depending on what you are looking to find or to prove. When testing people it is very important that the screening method be chosen for time frame, whether hours, days or months, and select a confirmation method with a matching profile.

Skin wipe. Drug metabolites are deposited on the skin by the perspiration and remain when the sweat evaporates. This is a good indicator of recent use as it allows the consumption of drugs to be seen for a number of days, or weeks in the case of Cannabis. The non intrusive wipe on the skin is very simple and quick to perform and there is no reason why a sample should not be provided. A skin wipe makes it an excellent choice for pre employment and random screening of employees. Even more so when combined with saliva for DrugWipe Dual.

Urine sample The body will take the drugs from what ever means of consumption and filter them out of the blood and into the urine. This is a good indicator of recent use as it allows the consumption of drugs to be seen for a number of days, or weeks in the case of Cannabis. Urine is also an excellent confirmation method to back up a skin swab as urine is relatively easy to collect and both cheap and quick to process at the laboratory as very importantly, urine is a gold standard UK workplace legally defensible confirmation sample.

Hair Taking a number of strands of hair from the root end is a good indicator of long term use but cannot show use. Certain drugs can also be picked up passively from the atmosphere. Hair testing is still a good method of looking back a number of months, hence its possible use for pre employment or rehabilitation screening. Price and time to process are a consideration.

Saliva swab The raw drug or its residue is only in the mouth for less than five minutes but the metabolites can go into the blood and can variously be passed back into the saliva for a number hours. This is a good indicator of very recent use but can be linked to current impairment hence the choice of a saliva sample for drug driver road side screening by the police. Saliva is too short a time scale for effective employee drug screening alone and is not quantitative enough to be a confirmation sample. However forms an integral part of the overall screen provided by DrugWipe Dual.

Blood sample. The blood carries the raw drug and its metabolites around the body until the drug is filtered out of the system. This removal process can be completed within a couple of hours hence blood is an excellent choice for confirmation of a short duration sample such as saliva. However, blood requires a doctor or nurse to take the sample and is more expensive and time consuming to process at the laboratory.

Nail Nails are beginning to provide another source of long term monitoring but are not at the forefront of current drug screening methodology.